Welcome to the blog dedicated to my webcomic, A Ghost on the Roof!
It is a story loosely based on the novel The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux, set in modern times.
After I post the first pages of chapter one on September 1st, I will continue to post one page a week, on Sundays. Of course, if life gets in the way the updates may be delayed but I am determined to keep posting regularly. For information, the whole story is 18 chapters long.
I hope you will enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed creating it, and that you will follow me on this journey!
An anon asked me for Erik x Raoul in their masquerade attire. Red Death is surprisingly very easy to draw compared to Raoul’s hussar uniform; my hand is dead from that;(
I haven’t been happy with my linework lately so I used this as an exercise to practice my lines.
This is a great day for Phantom Manor enthusiasts ! This is the very first official figurine depicting the attraction’s characters and designed specifically for Disneyland Paris. In the link above, i listed all the Phantom Manor merchandising released over the year in order to study its evolution - spoiler, we’re good !
Mad Men Season in Review: Have We Seen This Before?
In part one of the final season of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano tries to turn over a new leaf and become a better person, only to revert back to his prior terrible ways by the show’s conclusion.
In season four of The Wire, Jimmy McNulty tries to shy away from his obsessive, self-destructive path and settle down a bit. But as he steps back into his regular routine in season five, the old McNulty returns.
Now season five of Mad Men ends with Don Draper sitting at a bar, facing the temptation of two beautiful strangers as a seemingly inevitable “yes” to their proposition sits behind his lips, right next to his newly repaired rotten tooth. After a season of Don avoiding the sexual allure of high class escorts, Rolling Stones fans and Joan in an attempt at pious reinvention, I ask: Haven’t we seen this routine play out before?
In this golden age of television that kicked off at the turn of the century, there are four dramas that are largely cemented in their status as the top tier: The Sopranos,The Wire,Mad MenandBreaking Bad. There are shows like The ShieldorHomeland that have tried to breach the pack, but so far those shows stand solidly ahead of anything else.
But other than quality, one notable aspect that groups these shows together is that they all center themselves on the same concept: The American Dream. They all deal with an amoral anti-hero (or in the case of The Wire, a whole mess of amoral anti-heroes) trying to rise or having risen from meager circumstances to get what they feel society has to offer them, and how they corrupted themselves in the process of achieving that dream.
It’s rather shocking that what are coming to be considered the greatest efforts of American television have such narrative uniformity. And it seems that with that uniformity, this recurring aspect of “anti-hero seeks redemption but then reverts back to his old ways” has become a trope that sees endless repetition.
After last week’s episode, I wrote that Don was now and forever would be a different character. And I still think that’s true. His visions of his dead brother Adam only lend credence to that theory, particularly the unfortunately heavy-handed final appearance at the dentist’s office. But the fact that he is now a different character doesn’t mean his actions will necessarily change. It appears Mad Men is going to go down a road of echoes as it enters its last seasons. New Don will likely go through all the motions we saw in seasons one through three, if the napalm-fueled fire from his meeting with Dow is any indication. But it’s going to be a much more self-aware version of Don, a more nihilistic Don. It will be a Don that knows he is a hollow, empty shell without substance.
If Tony Soprano and Jimmy McNulty are any indication (or for that matter, Avon Barksdale, Omar Little, Tommy Carcetti and others), embracing the worst aspects of himself seems to be the only way for a high-class drama lead to go. But on the bright side, it could be worse for Don. Just ask the gaping wound that will be working directly above him next season, Peter Campbell.
Request by: @adrianaprox “Could I get a phantom of the opera x reader where the reader is the soulmate of his. The reader has a line of one of his songs. Maybe music of the night? The 2004 version of phantom of the opera. Do you do smut? If not that’s fine. It can be fluff too.”
A/N: Sorry it took so long darling! I don’t write smut, but I hope this is what you had in mind. I did change the song because, TBH, I’ve been turning something similar to this around in my head for a while (except with the song ‘All I Ask of You’). This is my first time with the soulmates AU, so I hope it’s what you were after. And by the way, the fact that you requested my all-time FAVORITE version of POTO just has me so excited!!
The lyrics in this fic are from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s version of ‘All I Ask of You’ and will be italicized. I did change some of the words in the song to better fit the fic and these words will be bolded. As always, the French translations come from Google translate.(I thought this GIF fit the feel of this fic, but it has no reflection on who the reader is)
You stare down the long tunnel, the spattering of torches not doing much in the way of lighting. The heavy thumping of your heart echoes in your ears, drowning out the deafening silence of the catacombs. One tentative step follows another as you start down the winding hall. Something within these tunnels, as dismal as they were, was calling to you. You couldn’t stop yourself as you began to sing, a song you’d never once heard in your life, yet one you knew intimately.
“No more talk of daylight, Forget these wide-eyed fears I’m here, nothing can harm you my words will warm and calm you Let me be your freedom, letdarknessdry your tears. I’m here with you, beside you, *toholdyou and to hideyou…” (*just replaced words here from later in the song)
You sing softly, your voice carrying in the darkest of the tunnels. Your heart pounds in your chest as you wait for a response, the silence stretching out before you like a dark abyss. The tunnels are again blanketed in quiet, the only noise being that of dripping water, having echoed its way up from the cavern. Just as you are about to turn around, a rich voice, having danced its way up through the maze, greets you and sets your heart aflutter.
“Say you love me every waking moment, turn my head with talk of wintertime… Say you need me with you now and always… Promise me that all you say is true that’s all I ask of you”
His voice floods your mind with memories, of a place, of a person you’d never met. Warm hands leading you through the darkened cobblestone streets of Paris, melodies soaring through the cavern, long fingers flying over the keys, a darkened face obscured by a delicate white mask. A feeling washes over you, unlike one you’d ever felt before, your heart lifting in your chest and pulling you towards the person behind that voice. You find yourself answering the heartfelt words of the stranger, the words coming from somewhere deep within you.
“Let me be your shelter let me be your night You’re safe, no one will find you your fears are far behind you…”
Your footsteps quicken, the hold on your heart tightening as you find yourself making turns to somewhere you’d never been. His voice pulls you in, bringing you closer to the stranger awaiting you.
“All I want is freedom, a world with no more light and you, always beside me, to hold me and to hide me…”
His words tear at you, your heart breaking at the palpable pain in his voice. You felt his yearning, his desire, his hope for something more gripping you. Your pace quickened, the familiarity of it all leaving you with a need to see him, to hold him, to feel that he was real.
“Then say you’ll share with me one love, one lifetime let me lead you from your solitude Say you need me with you here, beside you… anywhere you go, let me go too Oh, that’s all I ask of you…”
Your voice soars ahead of you through the poorly lit halls of the underground catacombs, your confidence growing as you move closer and closer to him. You couldn’t help but feel that you were headed towards your future; a future that you’d only ever dreamed of, a future with someone you couldn’t help but believe was far more than a stranger. It was as if his mere presence was calling you closer, your heart leading you towards him because it recognized him as the missing part of itself you’d been searching for for so long.
“Say you’ll share with me one love, one lifetime… say the word and I will follow you…”
His words are clearer now, sounding as if they were only around the next corner. Your cloak billows out behind you as you round the last corner.
Your heart stops in your chest as your eyes fall on him for the first time. Standing there in a small, narrow riverboat was a man, a cloak of darkness wrapped around his shoulders and that same mask from your vision adorning his face. He slowly leans forward, his hand outstretched towards you. You steadily move forward, your voice twining with his as you do.
“Share each day with me, each night, each morning…”
Your hand slips into his, the coolness of his black glove a sharp contrast to the rising heat in your face, as he breathes out “Say you love me…”.
And before you even know what you’re saying, you reply with “You know I do.”
His other hand hesitantly reaches out to your cheek, his touch electric, lighting up parts of you that you hadn’t even known existed. You extend a hand, your fingers stretching out to brush lightly against his uncovered cheek. He leans into your touch, his hand coming to grasp the one you have on his face, while he pulls you closer, his hand resting on your hip.
“Erik.” You whisper his name, a name you hadn’t known, yet had felt so natural, so right.
A smile, one that you would’ve missed had you not been looking at his lips, brings a gentle softness to his features. “Ah, mon amour, je t'ai attendu toute ma vie (my love, I’ve been waiting my entire life for you.)” He whispers, his voice husky as he does. He lifts your hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of your hand before sweeping you close, one arm wrapping around your waist as he pulls you along, moving slowly to music only he could hear.
You rest your head on his chest, the strong pounding of his heart somehow matching the beating of your own. You know, in some unexplainable way that you were finally complete, no longer left searching for that another part of you.
